Wake up America! Civilisation calls everyone Poster

Wake up America! Civilisation calls every man, woman and child! Print shows a woman dressed in Stars and Stripes, symbolising America asleep. Wake up America! James Montgomery Flagg's Call To Arms. After two and a half years of neutrality, the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917. James Montgomery Flagg, who created some of the war's most indelible images, sounded the alarm for all citizens in this poster which was featured in "Wake Up, America" Day in New York City just thirteen days later on April 19th. Actress Mary Arthur was Flagg's model for Columbia who is a personification of America and Liberty. She is shown asleep, wearing patriotic stars and stripes and a Phrygian cap a symbol of freedom since Roman times. While she dozes against a fluted column, another visual reference to Western classical antiquity and civilisation, sinister storm clouds gather in the background. James Montgomery Flagg created his most famous work in 1917, a poster to encourage recruitment in the United States Army during World War I. It showed Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer (inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose) with the caption “I Want YOU for U.S. Army”. Flagg had first created the image for the July 6, 1916 cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper with the headline “What Are You Doing for Preparedness?” Over four million copies of the poster were printed during World War I, and it was revived for World War II. Flagg used his own face for that of Uncle Sam (adding age and the white goatee), he said later, simply to avoid the trouble of arranging for a model President Franklin Delano Roosevelt praised his resourcefulness for using his own face as the model. By some accounts though, Flagg had a neighbour, Walter Botts, pose for the piece.